


mighty you, here and now

by kimaracretak



Series: and there the black and white will end [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: In which questions are asked, and a plan is made.





	mighty you, here and now

**Author's Note:**

> for the femslashficlet's language of flowers prompt table #12: [lilac](http://www.flowermeaning.com/lilac-flower-meaning/) (spring, innocence, first love, confidence)
> 
> title from lykke li, 'youth knows no pain'

Travelling with Raishan is ... it's _nice_. Somehow Keyleth hadn't expected that, despite her initial fear of maybe being alone until she reached the Earth Ashari. But yeah. Raishan. She's nice. She's smart, she's _so_ smart, and her smile is wicked and she has an easy confidence that Keyleth aches for and this is probably what having a crush is, isn't it?

Over the next few days they trade stories: Keyleth learns that Raishan is a few years older than she is, and had some magical training as a child before realising that the answers to the questions she wanted to ask probably wouldn't be found in books. Keyleth tells her about growing up in Zephra, about how the feeling of the soil under her feet was only ever matched for beauty by the feeling of flight.

There's a shadow over Raishan's face whenever Keyleth brings up flight, or the wind, and Keyleth thinks about pressing it but doesn't really want to when this whole travelling together thing is so new. She doesn't quite trust herself not to bring it up anyway, though - she's always been really good at fucking up talking things - so instead she tries to focus on other things about her new friend.

Like the way there's black strands threaded through her green hair, the way the skin around her eyes crinkles with something that might be laughter, or might - Keyleth studies the tension Raishan carries in her shoulders - be pain. Like the way Raishan doesn't like sticking to the paths and the way she drags her nails across the bark of the oldest trees they pass.

"It's a way of saying hello," she explains, dizzyingly innocent, and Keyleth would protest that it's weird and bad for your nails anyway, if she weren't so preoccupied with thinking about how those hands would feel running up and down her thighs.

Instead, she laughs and rolls her eyes and presses her palms to the marks Raishan's nails have left in the bark, and imagines that that's another connection between them. It's spring, and there's sap sticky under Raishan's nails and coating Keyleth's palms, and everything is new and everything is open to them, if they want it.

Keyleth didn't have a destination in mind when she left Zephra, beyond knowing that Stillben was somewhere in the foothills and she needed to see the other tribes. Raishan seems to have even less of a plan, not quite leading and not quite following, just looking up at Keyleth with blinding gold eyes and sharp elven teeth and saying, _let's go._

"So where are we going?" Keyleth finally asks. It's day five, she thinks, somewhere in the haze that's maybe the season's first real twilight. Raishan crouches by the fire, green and gold where she's not dappled with shadows.

They didn't go to Stillben. Still could, maybe, but it doesn't seem that pressing. Raishan knows the forest nearly as well as a druid. Nearly as well as an Ashari.

"Well," Raishan says, and her eyes are on the fire. "That's up to you, isn't it? I did join you rather unexpectedly." Only then does she look up, mischievous in the light that's washing the colour from her face.

Keyleth blushes under the scrutiny. "Um, ah. I fell out of a tree onto you."

"Through my fault." Raishan shrugs gracefully and gets up to sit down at Keyleth's side as they watch the rabbit slowly turn on its makeshift spit. "So where are we going?"

Keyleth bites her lip, but Raishan seems to want an answer. "Well," she says, and she can feel her cheeks flaming hotter than the fire and what she's about to admit, "I've never actually been to a city before. You know, apart from Zephra. And I was thinking maybe ... Westruun? Or ..."

Raishan snorts. "Westruun? Hardly a city."

"Oh." Keyleth folds her arms and hunches over, wishing she knew a spell that would let her sink into the ground. "That's, you know. Fine. We can ..."

"Don't misunderstand me." Raishan's voice is low under the sounds of the night forest. "I mean that you deserve much, much better than that. What if we went to Emon, instead?"

Keyleth can only stare, struck speechless.

Raishan grabs her wrist, tighter and sharper than Keyleth expected, and her touch is almost overwhelming. "Chin up, Princess," she says with a smirk. "I have every confidence in you."

So maybe Raishan's nice. So maybe Keyleth has a couple questions anyway.

Surely neither of them should trust so easily?

But Raishan's skin is warm against her own, and that is very hard to remember.


End file.
